27.11.07

Who needs a President?

Call me a fool (not to my face), but I have this strange "free" feeling ever since the Presidential Post moved under the "Help Wanted" section. When Emile Lahoud left the Presidential Palace last Friday, I felt relieved that I lived to see him depart, and proud that regardless of all the traumas and scandals we Lebanese manage to bring on ourselves, and all the dependency and immaturity our political class never fails to display, that while we cannot as a people run our own affairs without hailing the whole world paratroopers and maniacs in, I was proud that we manage to get rid of those in authority eventually, peacefully, but not quietly. What is a 9-year term when it comes to a lifetime president, or to hereditary rule? I even felt a tiny shred of respect for the ex-President. He overstayed his welcome, but at least he walked out, and unlike other Arab rulers, was not hoarded out by an ambulance, a mob, or a funeral procession.

I do not want to act as a judge, so I will not comment if Lahoud has blood on his hands, in his veins, or elsewhere. Eventually, long as it may be, Justice shall prevail to either indict the criminals or to acquit the innocent.

Maybe it is that I am the only person in the country thinking -- drum roll -- do we really need a president? It's time to spurt out the suppressed feelings on authority, and a religiously branded officials in specific. Let me go through some arguments on the media on why we need a Maronite President - hopefully I'll run the same comparison one day when the House Speaker retires and no replacement is found:

1- Symbol of the country: Yeah sure, we have been the butt of half the world political jokes lately, and this is only the beginning. Sudan (home of Darfur, Halayeb, and Southern Sudan crisis) sent a peace envoy. Get it?

2- Preserving the Post for Christians: Huh? Demographically speaking, the Christians should press on a secular state – the sooner the better, and drop the religious confessional thing forever, and that goes to the rest of the Lebanese if they knew what's good for htem. The Christians do not need a post to keep them or to preserve them, and if they JUST cannot live wihtout that representation, they should realistically seek the Prime Minister's Post or the Parliament Speaker post. In reverse, the Druze go unrepresented in the top three posts, but Weam Wahab is the shining star and spokesperson of the opposition, comprising Maronites, Shiias, and Druze. MP Jumblat is one of the most influential figures in the Majority Party.

3- Protect the Christians: Let's quickly run through who invited the Syrians to protect the "Christians?" – Answer: a president. Who appealed for them to stay – Answer: another "two presidents" – Who ran civil conflict in the so called "East Beirut" – Answer: A presidential candidate assigned by another President at the end of his term. The result: half the Christians immigrated. So much for protection, representation, and preserving the symbol of the Republic. The so called "Christian politics" have done more harm to the christian presence in the last 50 years than 2000 years of Christian presence in this land.

Again and again we fall for the political lies, for the sectarian "bo3bo3" (monster), again and again we stand for our Feudal Masters in power - they manipulate us.

Having said that, enough with the religious labeling rubbish, it's time we think of ourselves as citizens, not tribesmen, or else – there won't be anyone of us left to tell where we went wrong – Christian, Muslim, or Monkey worshippers for all I care.

Today (14th Dec 2007), two days after the assasination of Brigadier general Francois El Hajj, Nabih Berri has made 5 demands on behalf of the opposition that he believes should be resolved before the election or consensual agreement of a president. I'm not going to list them here( look them up), but some of these demands are new demands from the opposition, previously un-declared before this period.

It is my belief that the opposition, through these damands, and previous demands on similar institutional subjects, are willingly submitting themselves as pawns of Damascus in order to allow the Syrian regime to infiltrate the legal, judicial and military institutions of Lebanon.

Yes the Syrian army has left Lebanon, but Damascus has its loyalists within the Republic and these loyalists, militant and political, are the current opposition.

Let us remember that the Damascus regime is a totalitarian police state with no respect for human rights or any kind of social freedom. Furthermore the leaders of this regime have no socio-political programme for Syria or for the Middle East as a whole apart from their efforts to preserve the current status-quo which allows them to become increasingly wealthy through profound corruption in every single national and private sector.

The elimination of the Syrian regime is a prerequisite to social and political stability in the Near East.